Psystar: Snow Leopard Belongs in Florida

Psystar reasserted its claims that Leopard and Snow Leopard copyright-related issues should be dealt with in court independently in its response to Apple's motion to dismiss the unauthorized Mac clone maker's recent case filing in Florida. Apple and Psystar have been battling in U.S. District Court in California over whether or not the PC maker can build and sell Mac clones for months, but the clone maker added a new wrinkle to the case when it started the legal process over again with a new filing in Florida.

Psystar filed a new lawsuit against Apple in Florida over Mac OS X 10.6 at the end of August claiming Apple is violating antitrust laws by locking Snow Leopard to its own hardware, and that a new case is reasonable since it has to use different methods to install the new OS on its PCs. Apple countered that the cases in California are essentially the same and filed a motion with Judge Alsup, the Judge overseeing the west coast case, to dismiss the Florida case.

In its response to Apple's motion Psystar claimed that Mac OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard, wasn't explicitly included in the California case, so any copyright-related issues relating to it should be dealt with independently. The company also alleged that Apple hadn't filed a copyright for Snow Leopard as of September 14, 2009 even though the new operating system was released on August 28.

Psystar commented in its opposition to Apple's motion, "Apple elected not to take steps to add Snow Leopard to this case by seeking a late pleadings amendment. Apple elected not to raise the issue of Snow Leopard's impending release and its effect on the time needed for discovery conference requested for that purpose."

"Psystar is arguing that Apple's Amended Complaint did not and could not have covered Snow Leopard, because Snow Leopard was not copyrighted when Apple filed its Amended Complaint, notwithstanding that Apple's Amended Complaint clearly alleges infringement of the Mac OS, Mac OS X, and/or all version of Mac OS X Leopard," an attorney familiar with intellectual property issues told The Mac Observer.

He added that Psystar's "arguments should fail because Apple's Amended Complaint embraces Snow Leopard the moment that Psystar infringes on Apple's copyright in it. The minor differences in licensing and the technical measures that Psystar uses to infringe don't make any legally relevant difference, because even with those differences, the same legal claims and defense are at issue before Judge Alsup, as existed before Apple released Snow Leopard."

Convincing Judge Alsup in California and Judge Hoeveler in Florida that the release of Snow Leopard warrants its own trial may be easier said than done. Many of the legal arguments Psystar is using in Florida have already been shot down in California, and the company could potentially risk looking as if it is shopping around for a more sympathetic court -- and that's never a good tactical move.

Where in the H3ll is the money coming from? Fighting three federal cases (let’s not forget the bankruptcy) on both ends of the country is not cheep. They must have spent millions. A little fly by night computer clone maker running just one step out of a garage won’t have that kind of cash. Who is supplying the money to keep these morons going? There case is all but hopeless so I doubt the legal team is working on contingency. Someone is pouring a ****load of cash in to keep this going. Who and Why?

B9robot3:07 PM EDT, Sep. 21st, 2009Guest

I just hope the two judges see through this funny business and stop the non-sense already and get on with the case already pending in California.
Prystar has already proved they don’t make moves based on sense, but only to delay the inevitable defeat of there clone business.
Making Apple fight in another court isn’t going to help them either. Apple has plenty of money to do that where ever they put up a case.’

I really wonder who is funding there fight myself? And why haven’t the judges responded to the fake bankruptcy filing, which everyone knew was a delay tactic that failed miserably.

B9robot3:10 PM EDT, Sep. 21st, 2009Guest

“Psystar is arguing that Apple’s Amended Complaint did not and could not have covered Snow Leopard, because Snow Leopard was not copyrighted when Apple filed its Amended Complaint”

This is really funny. Snow leopard is OSX like Leopard and so on. There argument is mute right out of the box. OSX in general is copyrighted, therefore all newer versions carry that same copyright.

Dear Geoduck: I am in complete agreement with your observation that some person or persons, natural or judridical, with great wealth must be funding Psystar’s legal fight, and that could, under the right circumstances, be actionable as champerty and/or maintenance, which are two common law torts that prohibit strangers to a lawsuit, that is, persons, who don’t have a legally cognizable interests in the lawsuit, from funding plaintiff or defendant’s case. So, who, indeed, is funding Psystar?

I understand that Rudy Pedraza, Psystar’s President and CEO, mortgaged his house to finance Psystar’s defense, but Rudy’s house wouldn’t provide enough money, unless it’s a 30 million dollar mansion.

Would there need to be that much expense associated with the legal setup? Given the supposedly small size of Psystar as a whole, I should think their entire legal operation could be handled by a team of less than 10 lawyers and para-legals. That would easily fit within the $88 thousand owed to the first law firm.

The whole thing feels to me like Psystar has realized that if they lose this, they’re shut down, out of business, and already owing more money than they can possibly repay. So why not throw every tactic they can into the fray?